South Africa’s Municipal Electricity Sales Surge By 25%

between the quarters ended June and September‚ Statistics SA said on Tuesday.

This means many South Africans now have access to electricity something that the ruling ANC has been boasting about in the past few years.

Whenever it is facing a barrage of criticism, the ANC often calls upon its critics to look at all its good contributions like the provision of electricity to as many South Africans as possible.

According to Statistics SA’s quarterly financial statistics of municipalities survey, in monetary terms this translated from 17.2 billion rand ($2 billion) in the quarter ended June to 21.5 billion rand ($2.5 billion)in the quarter ended September.

The survey, which covers local‚ district‚ and metropolitan municipalities, also found that purchases of electricity and gas by municipalities rose by 33.9 percent over the period to 16.7 billion rand ($2 billion) in the quarter ended September from 12.4 billion rand ($1.4 billion) the quarter before.

The results of the survey are used to estimate gross domestic product and its components as well as to assist the public sector with policy formulation and the financial analysis of municipalities.

The survey involved all 278 municipalities.

Meanwhile, purchases of water decreased by 5.8 percent between the two quarters‚ while an increase of 8.9 percent was recorded for the sales of water over the same period.

The survey also showed that the property‚ plant and equipment of municipalities increased by 0.4 percent between the two quarters.